How New England Towns Were Settled: Three Colonial Models

1. Puritan/Congregational Towns (Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Haven)

• Origin: Religious dissenters (Puritans) — Great Migration (1630-1642), ~20,000 people.
• Ideal: "Holy commonwealth" — covenant community governed by God's law.
• Layout: Nucleated village: meetinghouse (church/town hall) on common, house lots radiating, strip fields beyond.
• Governance: Town meeting (freemen vote), selectmen (executive), constables, clerks. Majority rule.
• Economy: Subsistence + surplus trade. Fishing, timber, shipbuilding, coastal commerce.
• Social control: Church membership = freemanship (initially). Tithing, Sabbath laws, moral regulation.

2. Proprietary Colonies (Maine, New Hampshire — initially; also Maryland, Pennsylvania outside NE)

• Origin: Royal charter to proprietor (Gorges, Mason, Baltimore, Penn).
• Control: Proprietor = quasi-feudal lord: laws, courts, land grants, officials.
• Settlement: Planned towns (rarely achieved), land sales/grants to attract settlers.
• New Hampshire: Mason/Gorges grants → royal province 1679. Maine: Massachusetts absorbed 1650s.

3. Royal Colonies (Massachusetts post-1691, New Hampshire, later others)

• Origin: Crown assumes direct control (revoked charter, new charter).
• Governor: Royal appointee — veto power, commands militia, appoints council/judges.
• Assembly: Elected lower house (property suffrage) — power of purse.
• Settlement: Groups organized/funded by crown or speculators. More diverse (non-Puritan).

Common Threads

• Town as fundamental unit (vs. Southern county/plantation).
• Land distributed to families, not aristocrats.
• Militia obligation universal.
• Education valued (especially Puritan towns).

Rhode Island & Connecticut Exceptions

RI: Founded by exiles (Williams, Hutchinson) — religious liberty, no established church. CT: Hooker's congregation → Fundamental Orders (1639) — written constitution, broader suffrage.